Joseph Matthew Greenfield

I was scheduled to be induced on Friday morning, June 18th, and 7am. Matt and I were up, dressed, fed, and about to walk out the door when my cell phone rang. It was the hospital. Unfortunately, they had too many women already there in labor, so there was no where for me. I would have to be rescheduled. Now, here it was, 6:30 in the morning, I was already up and ready to go, with nowhere to go. I was understandably sad, but I (and my mom and sis) thought maybe some retail therapy would help. After all, if I were to actually go into labor, they'd have to make room for me, right? Well, no luck. We shopped most of the day, I spent a lot of time in a chair waiting for them to shop, but Joey did not decide he was ready.

Saturday morning, we started the whole thing over. Matt and I were up and ready to go, praying my cell phone wouldn't ring. It didn't. We got to the hospital and I was in the bed, IV in, water broken, Pitocin dripping by 8:15. It was a pretty uneventful morning spent mostly watching the little monitor to see if I was having any contractions yet. My sister had downloaded a "contraction timer" App for her Iphone, so we had a little fun playing with that. All the excitement wore off into boredom by noon. At least everyone else was probably bored... I was starting to have some real contractions, so I wasn't that bored. By 1:00 I was ready for something to take the edge off. They told I could have my epidural whenever I wanted it, but of course the anesthesiologist wasn't available at that time.

The nurse told me they could give me some IV meds until he was available. I said ok! The stuff they gave me made me crazy! I felt like I had weights on my eyelids and I could NOT open them. I was sweating (which if you know me, I don't get hot!) and itching like a mad woman. But, the contractions did feel better, so I tried not to complain. By 3:00, the medicine had worn off and I still couldn't get my epidural yet. The nurse agreed to give me another half-dose of the IV medicine to get me through. It wore off by 3:45. But I finally got my epidural at 4:00 and it was smooth sailing after that.

I had been slow to dialate all day, so it seemed we were in for the long haul. They checked me around 5 or so and said I was around a 5 I think. She said she'd be back in a couple HOURS to check again. I napped and tried to rest, but it had been a long day so I was pretty ready to be finished. She came back in around 7 and said I was at a ten and ready to go. At that point, they didn't waste any time! They had me pushing and the doctor on the way by 7:15. The doctor arrived at 7:30 and they told me it would be no time before Joey was here. My epidural was so awesome I couldn't feel ANYTHING! I didn't even know when he had been born! They had to tell me! So, at 8:09 he was here and perfect.

He weighed 7 pounds and 9 ounces and in the Greenfield tradition was a small 18 inches long. Pictures to come soon!!